


True Need

by Chamerion



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Guilt, Torture (non-graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chamerion/pseuds/Chamerion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved heroic stories. This may or may not be one. (Snapshots from the life of Ulfric Stormcloak.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Need

**Author's Note:**

> _"The tragedy of a man is not that he dies, but that which dies inside him while he lives." --Albert Schweitzer_

* * *

 

When he is a boy, his mother reads to him. She sings as well, in a soft, throaty voice that he believes is beautiful - songs of daring, of resolve, of great triumphs and glorious defeats. Of Ysgramor and his Companions, of the Tongues of old, of mighty Talos. He loves to hear them.  
  
He is eight years old when the Greybeards invite him to study at High Hrothgar. It is as though some silver-tongued skald has crooned them into being, these wise old men of legend, the very order that spoke to Tiber Septim and named him conqueror. He is awed and anxious and vibrating with excitement - although he tries to be solemn, because the Greybeards are solemn, and because his father looks so proud and so sad.  
  
It is so much harder than he knew that anything could be, but he is a fierce and stubborn student. He rises early, and studies late; he sees the sun rise like blood against the peaks, and the moon glowing on the snow, and the shimmering curtain of the aurora hung between the stars like green and gleaming ice. He learns the dragon-tongue, slowly. And he learns struggle, and loneliness, and want; but high on the mountain, above the ever-shifting world, he knows but little of injustice.

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
He is eighteen, and all of his convictions have the bright urgency of youth. "I am sorry," he says, and it echoes on the stone. "I cannot."  
  
Arngeir is angrier than Ulfric has ever seen him, but there is sadness in his voice, as well. "You know you can never return here."  
  
He jerks his head. "I know."  
  
"You would abandon all of your hard work for this? For war? Have I taught you nothing?"  
  
"I cannot do nothing," he says, quietly. "My countrymen are bleeding while I stay here, in safety. You taught me well. Perhaps you had the wrong pupil."  
  
Arngeir folds his arms, half-turns away. Such helpless fury on the face of a man who could bring down the mountain with a careless word strikes Ulfric as passing strange. "Go, then."  
  
He moves to do so with a heavy heart, and is halfway out the door before he hears his name.  
  
"Ulfric!"  
  
He turns.  
  
"The Voice is not to be used lightly," Arngeir says, low and fervent.  
  
"Yes." He nods. "I know."  
  
"Remember it. The world is not like High Hrothgar - the dragon-tongue is power beyond the reach of most mortals, and power is a dangerous gift. That is my final teaching."  
  
He nods again. "Yes, Master Arngeir."  
  
The old man's face twists. "Winds guide you."  
  
Ulfric feels his lips quirk sadly. "And you," he says. He shoulders his pack.

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
A week later he steps inside the Palace of the Kings. The war and the loss of his wife have carved new lines into his father's face, but at the sight of him the old jarl springs out of his throne like a boy, beaming. "Ulfric!" His father seizes him round the arms, claps him on the shoulder. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I could not--" he stops, shocked by the tightness in his throat. "I could not stay there. Not when I am needed here. I've come to join the Legion."  
  
He has rarely seen his father speechless. And though the Bear of Eastmarch has always been a kind man, even demonstrative in his gruff, boisterous way, it is long since he held him in his arms. "Oh, my son," his father says, into the top of his head. The man is still so much taller than he.  
  
(This is not what he will write of, in the letter smuggled out of prison after Markarth. There will be other things to say. But it is one of the things that will settle in his heart, and make him burn.)

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
To use the Voice in battle violates all that he was taught. So he does not use it. He is a trueborn son of Skyrim and of the Bear of Eastmarch, birthed in humanity's cradle and suckled on warrior tales; his shield and his axe are enough. He comes to enjoy the battle: the molten light of sun on steel, the dependable skill of his shieldbrothers, the thrum of purpose when his blood is up. And yet.  
  
The Aldmeri Dominion is an implacable enemy. Even ten years with the Greybeards have not prepared him for the awful power of magic turned against living flesh, of bodies rent and burned before they can bring their enemies within reach of a blade. He knows the scorched taste of air torn open by the shock spells of an elven battlemage; he knows the wet iron bite of blood that hangs over a battlefield, in the same way that Windhelm's sea-fogs taste of salt. He sees Rikke's lovely face turn closed and brittle in the wake of killing. He sees Galmar clamp a callused paw over his mouth and murmur "witch-elf bastards" with more of anguish in his voice than venom. Ulfric loses count of the Nords who spill their lifeblood into the fertile, greedy earth of Cyrodiil. Many of them are like brothers; he clutches them to his chest and watches blood bubble between lips that murmur the names of wives and children and sweethearts left behind, and knows helplessness more intimately than a lover.  
  
There is a battle. The fighting is close and he is exhausted, and heartsick, and  _angry_. Amidst the smoke and dust he turns and catches sight of another legionnaire on his knees, blade just out of reach, the fingers of one hand scraping desperate furrows in the dirt. Above him, an elven soldier raises a sword.  
  
Ulfric's lungs expand like the bellows of a forge. His  _thu'um_  is stronger than it has ever been, bursting its banks with all the brutal, bone-deep knowledge of force and what it means; it sends the Thalmor soldier skidding, armor clinking wildly as he flails. He is cut down before he can rise. The legionnaire comes up panting, eyes wild, and then turns to stare at Ulfric in wonder.  
  
 _It was a shield,_  he tells himself, later.  _Not a sword. Not a weapon. There is no harm in that._  
  
 _Stormcloak_  they call him, for the sheltering thunder of his voice, and it makes him flush with pride.

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
He wakes to darkness, shackled wrists, and pain.  
  
Someone wails in the distance - a thin, hopeless keening, like wind through mountain pines. It makes him jerk at his bonds. He searches for Hadring, for Olaf, but he is alone in the cell. All along the left side of his face is the tacky itch of dried blood, and when he grimaces he can feel it spiderweb with cracks, flaking clay in a dry riverbed. His heart is pounding steadily in his throat.  
  
The shackles are bolted to the wall above his head, too low for him to stand but too high for him to kneel; it forces Ulfric to hang by his arms in an aching half-crouch. He twists, shifts. The bonds give not at all. A draft whispers over his skin, and he realizes - suddenly, although the knowledge has been hovering around him for some time - that he is armorless, stripped to smallclothes. In the same moment he catches the first sight of his captors.  
  
There are two of them; they enter single file, then fan out in practiced silence. A soldier and a mage, by the uniforms. The guard carries a torch. It gleams dully on the gilded plates of his armor, the damp stone of the walls. He drops it into a bracket and turns deferentially to the female elf, who takes no notice: she has thrown back her hood to watch Ulfric with flat, expressionless eyes. Predator's eyes. The torchlight glints in them, casts stark shadows on her chiselled elven face. Ulfric lifts his chin.  
  
"The other two prisoners," he rasps. "Where are they?"  
  
There is no warning. He convulses with the lightning, shouting, and then goes limp. Gapes, breathless. The magic is still tingling in his teeth.  
  
"You will speak when spoken to," says the guard.  
  
The female elf has not twitched a muscle. "Why," she says, still fixing him with that cool sabrecat gaze. "Are you afraid for them?"  
  
Ulfric does not answer.  
  
For the first time there is a tick of some emotion on her face. Anticipation, or amusement; it is gone too quickly to tell. "Are you afraid for yourself?"  
  
He cannot square his shoulders, not as he is bound, but he glares up at her from underneath his brows. "I do not fear you," he says.  
  
He thinks she may be smiling, though her lips do not move. She steps forward, gliding in her long robes, and opens her hand; metal clinks to the floor. "Windhelm," she says. It's the brooch that pinned his cloak. Ulfric narrows his eyes. "The uniform of an officer, and the weapons of a noble - fine steel, custom made, not the usual crude things you humans carry." She folds gracefully to her knees, so that her face is mere inches from his own, and her voice is silky, cool, like the water he has only begun to realize that he desperately desires. "Who are you?"  
  
"I will tell you nothing," he hisses.  
  
When it finally comes, her smile is slick and sharp as a dagger in the ribs. "Then you admit there is something to tell?"

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
Her name, he discovers, is Elenwen. He hears one of the guards call her that and holds onto it like a lifeline - the precious knowledge that he has from her what she has not yet been able to wrest from him. But of course they do uncover who he is, eventually. The disappearance of a jarl's son is valuable intelligence. "Good morning, Ulfric," she purrs one day, in greeting, and his head snaps up - treacherously.  
  
She smiles. "Son of the Jarl of Windhelm, then? And a Tribune in the Seventh Legion, charged with the defense of the Imperial City. Interesting." He catches his breath, looks sharply away. "It's no use now," she says. "As you can see, your stubbornness avails you nothing."  
  
Now they will question him about the city. He is not ready. Thus far he has held out against their torture, but when he is lightheaded with bloodloss and sloppy with pain it is his practiced non-answers that save him, the words so oft-rehearsed that when he falls from screaming to babbling his lips know what shape to take. Now there is a new set of questions, and she is all too skilled at reading his face. So he does what many a warrior has done, in a desperate effort to unbalance a stronger opponent: he makes her angry.  
  
He has not used the Voice. It could not open his bonds, could do nothing but make him easier for them to identify. But now when she steps closer, he unleashes his breath with a roar.  
  
It knocks her clear across the room. She lets out an undignified shriek when she strikes the stone wall, and he starts to laugh - weakly, vindictively. In an instant she is on her feet, stalking towards him; she slaps him viciously enough to crick his neck, and he only chuckles harder. He is going to treasure that expression for the rest of what seems like to be a very short life. The sting of her hand only makes it sweeter; normally she would consider such a deed beneath her. It's a petty victory, and a terribly petty use of the  _Thu'um_ , but he cannot make himself stop laughing.  
  
"Gag him," Elenwen snarls, beside herself. "And then, as he enjoys using his voice so much, oblige him. I want every prisoner in this compound to hear him howl like the dog he is - gag or no, do you understand me?" She whirls on her assistant, who flinches. " _Do you understand me?_ "  
  
Ulfric has no idea how many other prisoners might be in the fortress, or whether they can hear him. But the Thalmor do indeed make him scream so loudly that his own ears ring and the gag barely matters. When they remove it he hasn't the breath for another Shout. He is sobbing, gasping - but through it all, he occasionally chokes on another laugh. Elenwen storms out in disgust. Shackled to the wall, half-kneeling in spatters of his own blood, Ulfric hangs his head and laughs himself into unconsciousness.

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
When next he laughs, it is at her sheer distaste after he vomits, bloodily, on the hem of her pristine robes - and she makes him regret it. Some days later he shouts a tiny, wicked tool out of her hand. He does not do it again.

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
In all his life he has never begged anything of anyone, but he is begging now.  
  
"Enough." His voice is a husk, autumn's last empty seed pod sighing in a grey wind. "Have you no mercy? Please."  
  
"You know the rules," she purrs. "Are you ready to cooperate?"  
  
He refuses to say yes, even now, but he cannot make himself speak the word  _no_. He tries three times to form his lips around it - and then hopelessly, almost silently, starts to cry. The tears trickle into his beard as he shakes his head. It's the only refusal he can manage.  
  
Her lip curls in disgust. "You call yourself a warrior? Look at you," she sneers. "You haven't the strength to resist forever. Why do you continue to try?"  
  
(Afterwards much of his captivity is strange and blank to his mind, but that moment is branded in his memory; years later it still makes him want to crawl into a dark hole and retch for shame.)  
  
(Two days later, he proves her right.)

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
It is three days since they crossed the Niben and advanced on the city, Dominion forces from Bravil and Skingrad tearing at their flanks like hungry wolves. But still they stand. Ragged, bloodied, straining to lock their shields in tight formation. Before them, Naarifin's army fights with the frenzy of desperate men. Behind them, Lake Rumare is on fire.  
  
If the elves cut through them and escape, they lose the war.  
  
"Hold your ground!" Ulfric bellows. "HOLD YOUR GROUND!"  
  
(After he broke - shattered, trembling,  _anything please no more_  - it was not long before Elenwen returned to his cell to inform him that the Dominion's armies had finally succeeded in sacking the Imperial City. Then she left him without a scratch. As though in reward.)  
  
It's a watercolor dawn, but it may as well be night for all the smoke. The men under his command waver, but they do not break. All along the southern edge of the city the trapped Aldmeri army batters itself to pieces against Nord shieldwalls, and all along that front Jonna's lines crack and bend and shudder, and stand firm. The Emperor's legions flood in from the north. The elves are destroyed; the city is retaken. Ulfric expects to feel relief.  
  
It never comes. If they have won a victory, the terms of the treaty do not reflect it. Ulfric is not the only soldier who feels as though he's been kicked in the gut when he hears them, nor the only one who rails against the slavemaster's peace they call The White-Gold Concordat. But he wonders - would things have been different, had the city never fallen in the first place?

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
Igmund holds out a shining scrap of hope, and Ulfric lunges at it like a starving man for bread.  
  
The dispossessed prince of the Reach is nearly as angry as he is, robbed of both his father and his throne by a rebellion that would have been crushed if not for the war.  _Come to Markarth,_  he urges.  _All men know of your skill in battle. Help me take back what is mine, and in my city at least men will be free to worship as they please._  
  
 _All is not lost,_  Ulfric hears.  _In your weakness you have failed your comrades and your country and your god, but now if you are strong you can make it right._  It is not hard to rally his men. They too clamor for justice, and they still speak the name of Ulfric Stormcloak with a fond reverence that shames him.  
  
Igmund wants revenge - for his father, for his wounded pride. Ulfric wants desperately to believe that he is a man again. To silence the howling guilt that names him a traitor and a coward, that wakes him shivering in the night with pleas for mercy bitter on his lips and self-loathing scorching a hole in his gut.  
  
It's a catastrophe. How could it not be?

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
After, in the bitter dark of prison, he thinks about the bodies plummeting from the walls, the blood trickling down the sloped stone streets. The gates of Markarth, burst by the same ancient siege weapon that broke the doors of fortresses in the First Era. He remembers Arngeir speaking of Jurgen Windcaller, of the defeat that was the price of arrogance. He has not thought of Arngeir in a long time. During the war the peace of High Hrothgar shone so brightly in his memory that it was painful to look at. He locked it away, like some powerful relic entombed lest it bring about destruction. He suspects Arngeir would have many choice words for him if they could speak now.  
  
And yet he is not sorry. He has been very angry for a very long time, but now, suddenly, that fury is channeled toward something outside himself. What are his broken vows, before the broken faith of an Empire that sells its subjects to buy its safety? That spits upon the sacrifice of untold thousands and profanes the sacred name of its founding god? He believed that he was fighting for a just cause. Now he sees that he was fighting for a petty Colovian warlord to keep his throne, and Ulfric vows that he is finished bleeding for an Empire that will not return the favor.  
  
He has seven years to brood on the ways he has been wronged. The Ulfric Stormcloak who emerges to claim his father's throne is older and paler, with a new, reluctant caution and the faintest of premature lines etched into his face. But he has a hard hot smolder behind his eyes and a voice that men will follow. Within the great stone walls upon which a hundred armies have broken like water Windhelm's Temple of Talos opens, and the ramparts spanning the river bristle with a swelling militia of guards wearing Eastmarch blue.  
  
(Far away, in the cutthroat political circles of Alinor where there are no more Blades to observe, an interrogator receives a promotion for a job well done.)

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
By the time he is thirty Ulfric has been a student and a soldier and a criminal. After he returns to Windhelm he buries his father - over and over, in a hundred different ways - by becoming a jarl.  
  
It has a long memory, his city: in the Valunstrad he can feel the press and whisper of ancient kings at his back, the weight of ancient eyes. Sometimes the grey snow whirls and flurries into ghostly shapes. Every year, on the thirteenth of Sun's Dawn, all five hundred names of Ysgramor's Companions are still recited before the Feast of the Dead.  
  
Ulfric is acutely conscious of whose throne it is that he sits upon, and grimly determined to prove worthy of the honor. He speaks, and holds court, and learns to wield cunning like a sword. He recalls that his father never spoke of the citizens as a common rabble. He acquires a reputation among Skyrim's jarls. He makes a magnificent politician, and surrounded as he is by the ghosts of his entire culture maybe it is not surprising that he never loses sight of his own. Bitterly contemptuous of Imperial promises, he pours Windhelm's treasury into what amounts to a private army. He bides his time. At the temple of Talos he prays for strength: to defy the Concordat, to atone for his failures, to fight for his people.  
  
(Five minutes' walk would find some of his people huddled in their grimy cornerclub and cursing his apathy, and a visit to the docks would see more of his people engaged in backbreaking labor for half-wages. But Ulfric never sees the irony.)  
  
Some eighteen years pass, and then High King Istlod dies.

 

*     *     *     *     *

  
Nine jarls gathered, and the other eight are content to discuss Torygg's ascension to High King as if it is of any political consequence whatsoever. As if the Moot truly has the power to name Skyrim's king, when the Jarl of Solitude and its Imperial interests has filled that position for centuries. Ulfric is not interested in foregone conclusions, nor in scraps of ceremonial power from the Empire's table.  
  
Torygg is painfully young, dressed in a prince's finery, fresh and bright as Solitude itself. But Ulfric mistrusts this jewel of a city, with Imperial gold lining its pockets the way nightshade lines its streets. He is a child of ice and snow and old stone halls; he much prefers Windhelm. And he doubts the resolve of this boy to rule as Skyrim needs him to. He means to test it.  
  
"The Moot is charged with determining Skyrim's future," he says. "Surely the succession is only a small part of that."  
  
Idgrod looks at him shrewdly. "And what did you have in mind?"  
  
"We all know what he has in mind," mutters Igmund.  
  
Ulfric chooses his words carefully. "Upon his ascension, every High King of Skyrim renews the alliance and pledges loyalty to the Empire," he says. "In this case, that means swearing to uphold the White-Gold Concordat."  
  
"If you've something to say, man, out with it," says Balgruuf.  
  
Ulfric folds his arms. "It may be time to reconsider old alliances."  
  
Laila Law-Giver frowns. "Skyrim has always been a loyal friend to the Empire."  
  
"A friend, or a slave? Friends stand as equals. Did Titus Mede ask your permission before signing away our country to the Dominion? Did he ask any of you?" He turns to Torygg. "Did he ask your father?"  
  
"Here, here!" says Skald.  
  
Igmund shakes his head. "What you're suggesting is treason."  
  
"Treason? My allegiance is to Skyrim and her High King, not to the Empire."  
  
"Enough games, Ulfric. You know the High King swears fealty to the Emperor," snaps Balgruuf.  
  
Ulfric locks eyes with Torygg. "Does he?"  
  
The table dissolves into bickering. "The Empire loathes the Concordat as much as we do. But it is wise to move cautiously when dealing with serpents," says Idgrod.  
  
"For how long? The people are impatient."  
  
" _You_  are impatient!" Igmund growls. "Do you not remember how this ended last time? We have sacrificed too much for the current peace to throw it away."  
  
A flare of rage skips along his veins. "Oh, I remember. And what would you know of patience, Igmund son of Hrolfdir? You seemed less certain of our beloved Emperor's timely aid when it was your throne at stake. And you sit upon it now because better men gave their blood and freedom to win it for you - you and Titus Mede are alike in that, oathbreaker. Do not  _dare_  to talk to me of sacrifice."  
  
It's more than enough to provoke a duel; Ulfric half-hopes the man will offer to defend his honor with his blade, but Igmund only grinds his teeth.  
  
"Enough," barks Balgruuf, with a quelling look at both of them. Ulfric ignores him.  
  
"Tell me true," he presses Torygg, aggressive now. "What do you think?" Torygg looks at his advisor. "Not your nursemaid - you."  
  
"Leave the boy be."  
  
"He's man enough to be a king!" Ulfric thunders. "Or are we still undecided?"  
  
"Istlod ruled well for more than twenty-five years--"  
  
"Yes, and his father before him, and his father before that," says Ulfric. "But now I want to hear from his son."  
  
Torygg swallows. "We still rely on the Empire for trade," he says, tentative.  
  
Ulfric is not surprised, unless it is at how utterly furious he still has the capacity to feel.  _High King! I could rule better,_  he thinks, in disgust. And then:  _I could rule better._

 

*     *     *     *     * 

  
When he was a boy, his mother sang to him: songs of courage, songs of heroes, songs of men with the voices of dragons. He loved to hear them. He dreamed of being one of them.  
  
Skyrim still needs heroes, and instead it has him.  
  
He is not Ysgramor, though he sits on Ysgramor's throne; he is not Wulfharth or Jorunn or Harald, and he is certainly not Talos. He is not even his father, who was beloved of everyone in Windhelm, who commanded affection where Ulfric inspires hate and hero-worship in equally unreliable measure. But he does possess the  _Thu'um_ : the ancient weapon of the Nords, the relic of a time when kings ruled by might and not by the whim of a distant and self-interested Empire. The symbol of a Skyrim that was strong, and may be strong again.  
  
He goes to Solitude with years of molten rage hammered into a cold and deadly purpose. Torygg smiles at him. "Jarl Ulfric--"  
  
"Torygg." His voice is glacial. "I do not call you king, because no true High King of Skyrim would be so fearful and blind to his people's suffering. Let all those present witness. In the eyes of gods and men I call you traitor, and challenge you to trial by combat."  
  
Torygg blanches. For a moment he looks dizzy, dumbfounded, and Ulfric wonders if he will refuse. It would serve his purposes just as well if he did, but after a moment the young king stands, a little shakily. "So be it."  
  
"No--"  
  
Torygg folds his fingers around the small hand gripping his sleeve, pushes it gently back toward his queen.  
  
"The High King claims his right to choose the weapons," says Torygg's steward, a little breathlessly. Ulfric nods.  
  
The court wizard shifts. "This is madness--"  
  
"Swords," says Torygg. "And shields."  
  
They have to bring Torygg's things from the armory. Ulfric feels a grim vindication in that - that this so-called defender of Skyrim does not even keep his war-gear close at hand. But he waits silently while Torygg puts on his mail and the members of his court huddle and whisper at the edges of the throne room. When it is done they face each other, there in the center of the palace. Torygg draws his sword.  
  
Ulfric looks at the young man in his ceremonial armor - polished by servants, but never by blood. He does not really look at Torygg's face. If he did, he might see an uncanny resemblance to his long-dead comrades: casualties of the hatreds and the war-wounds of their elders, doomed brave boys who faced down the Dominion's ranks with shaky hands and steady eyes. But he does not.  
  
His  _thu'um_  is stronger than it has ever been, bursting its banks with all his brutal, intimate knowledge of force, and what it means.


End file.
